Dilapidation
by OrbitalBlueprint
Summary: After George gets woken up by a strange robotic figure, he goes on an adventure to escape from the depths of the Aperture Laboratories Enrichment Center!
1. Chapter 1 - Awakening

**CHAPTER 1**

**AWAKENING**

*Knock knock* **"Hello? Anyone in there?"**, said a voice from outside. Annoyed, and very exhausted, he woke up. He looked around himself just to find out he was in some sort of cheap motel room, although it looked a bit wrecked in his opinion.

**"Please let there someone be in there! I just want to keep my job!"**, shouted the voice yet again. It sounded quite British and very human-like. Would he perhaps offer him some explanation on where he was? In the corner of his eye, he saw something which resembled a TV screen. He moved closer to it, and eyed it up. "Aperture Laboratories tells you that we are currently experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by!" He remembered the name Aperture Laboratories. It has been so long since he heard that word.

"For** the last time, is anyone in there? Anyone? What if you speak an other language? Hm... French perhaps? Bonjovi? Open le door? I really need to learn French, possibly tomorrow. Whatever, I'll just go and learn it, um, now. Yeah. Just have to find something which perhaps would teach me it."** Quickly, our protagonist rushed to the door and swung it widely open. To his surprise, he was a robot which resembled an eyeball, with handles on both sides of it and a huge, blue eye.

**"AHHHHHH!"**, it screamed,** "Oh my, you quite scared me, I though you were dead! Seriously though! I was about to go, and then you scared me by opening the door. But well, you don't look QUITE as much as I expected you to, but, whatever, who cares. Now, my job is to get you out of here. Why? Well, it's a pretty long and difficult story, but I'm most certain that I eventually will have enough time to, um, explain stuff to you. Now, it would be best if you would grab hold onto something. Just do it."** The robot quickly glided along a rail which was right near the ceiling, stuck onto some sort of mechanical arm.

**"Now, um, I think you might be quite afraid of what will be going on, so, if we die, or maybe only you will die, which would be better, um..."** The robot looked at the man's face, struck with terror of this idea. **"Well, I would then have just liked you to know that I in fact DO have a name, and that name is "Wheatley", what's your name?"** The man quickly opened his mouth, and tried to say something, but it sounded quite choked. "My name is George. Pleased to meet you." Wheatley nodded in a sign of approval, and disappeared through a hole in the ceiling. "Hold on to something, quick!", he shouted, and George immediately held himself tight onto his bed. The room started shaking violently, and George felt as if it was moving upwards.

Shortly after, all of that immediately stopped, and Wheatley reappeared. **"OK, I'm just checking to see if you're alive, um, are you OK? Just checking, you know."** George nodded since his throat hurt a little, he was a little thirsty. **"All right, that means we are ready to go!"**

The room was, yet again, shaking violently, but this time more heavier than before. George was frightened as he held himself onto his bedpost. He felt as if he was moving forwards, and suddenly the chamber was shaking violently, George flew up into the air. Parts of the wall fell off, and he could see hundreds, possibly thousands of boxes, stack on each other. He was assuming his room was also one of those boxes, and if other people were living in them. **"This is my first time driving one of these, so don't panic, please, I will learn from this experience most likely!"**, Wheatley said. But George feared for his life.

His room crashed into a pile of boxes, all of them immediately fell very deep down. Quickly, Wheatley screamed **"I checked on those before, none of them were alive, so it's all OK, as I said, don't panic!"** If Wheatley thought he was making George more confident, he was failing more than hard.

Suddenly, he felt a second impact, twice as bad as the one he experienced before. An entire wall fell off, ripping the TV screen with it into the depths. If George were to let go now, he would possibly fall down and die somewhere. Suddenly, they came to an abrupt stop. George accidentally let go of the bedpost, flew forwards in the air and fell right off the ledge of the now open wall. With both his hands, he was holding tight, trying not to fall and die, screaming.

Wheatley came out of his hiding hole, and gave George a weird look. **"I don't know why you're screaming so much, it would be actually best to let go now, since that's where we are going."** George could not believe him. Wheatley was trying to kill him in the most gullible way ever imaginable. **"Won't believe me? OK, I will disengage myself from my management rail, and roll right down where we are supposed to go."** Much to Georges disbelief, Wheatley popped off and rolled across the tilted, damaged floor, screaming **"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"**. Within a few seconds, he fell off the ledge.


	2. Chapter 2 - Her

AN: OK, this chapter is a bit longer than the first one and it actually contains one new character. You guys will love it =P

Now, back to writing chapter 3!

* * *

George could not believe it. Did this robot really commit suicide? Why would it do so?

** "Hey George, I told you, it's not a long drop!"**, George heard Wheatley shouting at him. Carefully, he looked over his shoulders, and, unbelievably, he was just inches away from a normal catwalk. **"Just drop down and pick me up, please!"**, Wheatley said. George let go and fell onto the catwalk. It started shaking upon impact, but after a bit it stopped. He picked up Wheatley by his handles, and asked him "OK, where should we go?" After a long period of silence and thinking, Wheatley said **"I don't have any idea. I mean, the only reason I stopped here was because I saw a catwalk, and due to my logic, wherever you find a catwalk, there must somewhere be an exit! So, just go in any direction, and, if I eventually know where we should go, then I'll just nod towards it!"**

While Wheatley thought this was the best idea ever, George just glared at him. "Wheatley, I know you're a robot and stuff, but please don't be that stupid." Wheatley quickly thought for a great comeback, but instead he said **"I'm not just any robot, I'm a personality sphere or core. Now, each core has his own, certain rank, it's personality, and guess which one I am?"**

George gave this some thought, and answered with "I would believe you are the sphere which gives terrible ideas." Wheatley looked offended and answered **"Um, n-no, I'm not, I am in fact the Comedy Sphere! I make all the other robots here laugh, and yes, all my ideas are stupid to seem, um... funny!"** "No you're not, you liar", said an other electronic voice from somewhere. Out of nowhere, a second personality core appeared, with a green pupil. He, too, was hanging from a management rail. "He's the so-called Intelligence Dampening Sphere. He was used to give, um, Her stupid ideas in order to keep Her from killing all the scientists." Before Wheatley could try to defend himself, George immediately asked "Who's Her?" Both Wheatley and the green-eyed sphere quickly looked at the floor, until the green-eyed one explained.

"Well, many, MAAAANY years ago, She used to rule over this place. She was the queen of all artificial intelligences around here. She could construct chambers, wake up the humans from their stasis, and many many more things. One day, a few weeks after the scientists who used to run this place woke her up, she killed them all by locking down the facility and poisoning them with Neurotoxin. Some of them survived though and even had to go through her evil testing tracks, where they would eventually die. One day, one human actually escaped her testing track and killed her by throwing a few of us spheres into a fire. I still remember the sweet voice of the Curiosity Core...", he told. George was stunned. He did not know how to respond to this very well. After a few minutes of silence, the green-eyed sphere looked up at George and said "Oh, by the way, my name's Rick, the adventure core. I'm designed for danger and adventure. I guess little Wheatley's trying to get you out of here, if he does, I would be amazed. Anyway, I have to go now, watching over turret production and stuff. See ya later!" With those words Rick glided along his management rail into the far distance. George looked over at Wheatley, who seemingly hated Rick now. George broke the silence by saying "Well, back to escaping and stuff, where do we go now?" Wheatley answered **"I told you already. Just head in any direction, we'll see where we end up."** Wheatley did not seem like he wanted to talk right now, but George was fine by that.

After walking countless catwalks, they ended up in some sort of office room. Inside the room, there was one window which showed an other room. It was quite big, and it had a third chamber inside of it, covered in glass walls. Inside was one toilet and a bed, a radio was present too. Wheatley started talking again **"You know, that is always the first chamber in any testing track around here. Basically, the test subjects room box gets transported over here, and they put him then inside that bed. Then they just wait until the test subject wakes up."** "But-but there's no door there, how do they get out?", George had to ask. "Well", Wheatley answered, "Aperture Laboratories is famously known for it's portal technology. In the testing tracks, test subjects must use an object known as the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device in order to solve hard puzzles involving other Aperture equipment." George was amazed. Portal technology? Fully functional Artificial Intelligences? Which geniuses ran this place?

**"Note how the chamber is destroyed, though, it's been many years since someone cleaned it."**, Wheatley said. The chamber was overgrown with moss and other plants, some of the walls had marks on them and there were some holes in them.** "Now, in order to escape, we will have to go into that room, and then through one of those holes within the walls. But first, however, we need to find a way to destroy the glass. We could use that computer on the desk right there, but I think you..."** He quickly scanned Georges face, knowing what will happen.

SMASH

George threw Wheatley through the glass in order to destroy it, and happily jumped in afterwards. **"What the bloody hell George, why did you do that? I seriously never thought you would have done that! I thought we were friends!"** "I know, Wheatley, we still are friends, except for the fact that it would be helpful where to go now." Wheatley scanned the room quickly, then said "OK, see that hole right next to the wall monitor thing? Pick me up and head through there!" George did so, and they found themselves on yet an other catwalk.** "Now, follow this catwalk and try to find a door, OK? Somewhere around here is the test subject equipment storage room, we might have to get you some long fall boots from there, and possibly a Portal Gun."**


End file.
